SL ranks high in health indices

Sri Lanka has come to the forefront from among 11 South East Asian countries with regard to several health indices according to the 2010 world health situation report published by the World Health Organization (WHO), said the Health Ministry.

Priority given to free healthcare services by the government, people's high literacy rate and their ability to understand health related information and advice are the reasons for this achievement, the ministry said.

The ministry added that Sri Lanka has a low child mortality rate, low maternal death rate, has successfully completed vaccination against measles, provides healthcare by trained health professionals, successfully completed sterilization programmes, provides pre-child birth care, has a low malaria death rate and low TB deaths rate. Sri Lanka has the lowest maternal death rate in South East Asia with 58 deaths per 10,000 live births.

Thailand has 110 deaths in this category while the Maldives records 120 deaths. The highest maternal death rate of 830 per 10,000 live births is recorded by Nepal. However, Sri Lanka comes second to Maldives in TB deaths.

Sri Lanka also occupies the fifth place in premature child deaths category where Thailand comes first with 14 deaths per 1,000,000 live births.